Careful before you jump | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Jerry Bostic has resigned as principal of Brookside Elementary School in Gaston County.

    You can read the CBS Charlotte story by clicking here.

    I would take this occasion as a former professor of School Law to suggest that this is the kind of school story we need to learn to read with a careful eye. I don't believe Mr. Bostic was forced to resign because he suspended a 9-year old student for calling his teacher "cute."

    It is not that I don't believe something such as that could happen, and in fact if what I have been told is true it has in fact happened right here in Beaufort County...that is an arbitrary and capricious termination by an unscrupulous school superintendent back by an incompetent school board. That that superintendent is now gone and while we are still stuck with some of the board members who been involved in such horrid events, we now have a superintendent that I do not believe would do such a thing as this news reports suggests.

    But ironically, I also know Reeves McGlohon, having worked with him when he was an assistant to the State Superintendent and I a high school principal in Wake County and later as a superintendent. Reeves, along with Bill Peek, in those days was the "go to guy" in the State Department on legal issues. I've seen him use sound legal reasoning too many times to believe he would arbitrarily fire a seasoned principal.

    I've not talked to Reeves about this, and in fact having spoken to him in over twenty years, but I'm just confident there were other extenuating circumstances to this case. But because I don't know what those circumstances are, that's all I'll say about that point.

    The reason I'm offering this story in this column is to simply point out that when we read such stories I would hope we all exercise substantial reservations about jumping to a conclusion of who is right and who is wrong. My experience has been that there is usually more to most of these situations than meets the eye and it is grossly unfair to all parties involved to jump to a conclusion after hearing only one side of the story.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.